AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The No. 20 Texas Longhorns and head coach Rodney Terry had a rough start to conference play in the program’s final season in the Big 12, falling to the Texas Tech Red Raiders 78-67 on Saturday at the Moody Center, the Longhorns’ only home loss since the arena opened last season.
Texas Tech played like a team relieved to be on the basketball court, with Isaacs scoring a game-high 21 points as the Red Raiders shot 52.8 percent from the field and 46.7 percent from three, making a number of difficult shots.
Texas received strong play from junior guard Tyrese Hunter, who scored 20 points, and senior guard Max Abmas, who scored 13 of his 18 points in the second half to keep the Longhorns in the game, but it wasn’t enough as four players combined to score 63 of Terry’s 67 points.
The Red Raiders’ 13-2 run in the first half and a 14-5 run midway through the second half proved decisive for the visitors.
Here are three takeaways from a loss that raises questions about how conference play will go for a Texas team that appears to be undeserving of its Top 25 ranking and more akin to the team Joe Lunardi currently has on the NCAA Tournament bubble.
Warren Washington dominated the interior, and Texas was unable to compete with him.
Washington, a 7’0, 230-pound transfer from Arizona State, was a physical presence in the paint, getting to his spots offensively and shooting over his favored left shoulder while also being a dangerous rim-runner. Not only did Washington’s 15 points change the game, but so did his efficiency, as he made all five of his field-goal attempts and added five more points from the line on eight free throws, exceeding his season average of 55.2 percent from the line.
“I feel like the way I played on offense reflects the work I’ve been doing off the court.” “I felt like I wasn’t making the shots I usually make at the start of the season, so I put in extra hours in the gym, and I just feel like it showed today,” Washington said.
With three blocks, Washington made life difficult for Texas senior forwards Kadin Shedrick and Dylan Disu.
“Texas’ interior is fantastic, and I thought Warren was the difference there, and Warren did an outstanding job.” “They just didn’t get many interior baskets with their front line,” Texas Tech head coach Grant McCasland said.
No stretch was more telling of the eventual outcome than Shedrick’s two attempts at the rim with five and a half minutes remaining, both of which were influenced by Washington and helped Tech maintain a seven-point lead.
The Longhorns never got closer than five points the rest of the way, and Shedrick finished 1-of-7 from the field and failed to get to the free-throw line, as well as missing a dunk near the end of the first half for good measure.
Despite McCasland’s praise for Texas’ front court, the issue for the Longhorns is that Shedrick has now looked like the modest contributor he was at Virginia in three of his four games against Power Five opponents rather than the player Texas recruited him to be, as evidenced by his star turn scoring 27 points on 15 shots against a bad Louisville team in New York.
With the way the Texas roster is set up, Shedrick needs to be more consistent and play at a level he’s never achieved in his career — that’s the wager Terry made on him, and it’s simply not paying off in enough games that matter.
A shortened rotation featured far too few game changers.
In contrast to the non-conference season, Terry’s rotation consisted of only eight players.
Junior forward Ze’Rik Onyema did not play. Chris Johnson, a freshman guard, didn’t either. Chendall Weaver, a sophomore guard, played nine minutes and had three rebounds and a hustle play to score a putback off the offensive glass. IT Horton, the senior guard, also played only nine minutes, missing his only shot and committing a personal foul while continuing to look mostly unplayable defensively.
“For the better part of a year our bench has been really good, coming in and scoring the ball for us and giving us a lift and they’ll continue to do that,” Terry said.
For the better part of a year, however, that was a different bench, and the struggles of Shedrick and senior forward Brock Cunningham, who had a night to forget, fouling out in 31 minutes with a turnover and zero points, finishing the game minus-11 during his time on the court, exacerbated the lack of contributions from the one that Texas currently has.
So four Longhorns — Weaver, Horton, Shedrick, and Cunningham — scored four points in a combined 78 minutes on the court. That’s not winning basketball, especially in the toughest conference in the country, and to be fair to Horton and Weaver, Shedrick and Cunningham played 60 minutes and scored two points.
Dylan Disu, a senior forward, was also fouled out, playing only five minutes in the first half and then looking out of sorts after halftime, making 1-of-7 shots and turning the ball over twice. During the decisive stretch of the second half, Disu turned the ball over after an offensive rebound of his own miss, missed a free throw, and then committed two fouls in 16 seconds, sending him to the bench for over five minutes and preventing Texas from cutting into the deficit.
“I think Disu picked up two quick fouls and never really got into the flow of the game in the first half.” “We got him going there for a little bit in the second half, and then we get another call that takes him off the floor,” Terry explained.
But, you know, we got a bit of adversity we got to have, you know, some more physicality and some more religious, you also want to in their posts in terms of, you know, carving out space and, you know, wanting to be factors on that end of the floor.
Dillon Mitchell is a game changer and a work in progress.
When good things happen for the Longhorns, the sophomore forward’s athleticism and drive are usually involved. However, Mitchell’s continued shortcomings are an issue that the Texas offense must overcome because he has yet to make a three-pointer since arriving on the Forty Acres and is a mediocre free-throw shooter.
The beginning of the second half mirrored the current Mitchell Experience. He missed a jumper on the first possession because his shot is still streaky at best. However, the miss resulted in an offensive rebound and Shedrick’s lone field goal of the night.
Mitchell committed an unnecessary foul 90 feet from the basket two seconds later, on a night when McCasland felt Tech gained an advantage at the free-throw line in part because Texas couldn’t defend without fouling.
Mitchell was out in transition after a steal by Shedrick, throwing down a rim-rattling slam on a lob from Abmas, 26 seconds after the bad foul.
Mitchell grabbed an offensive rebound off a missed three by Abmas and converted a layup to cap off a 6-0 run out of halftime that forced McCasland to call a timeout.
Mitchell finished with 16 points on 14 shots, was 2-of-4 from the free-throw line, grabbed 11 rebounds, and dished out four assists while committing two turnovers. Texas Tech left him alone in the half-court corner at times, allowing his defender to stay in the paint to discourage drives, forcing Texas to play five-on-four until Mitchell dove into the paint and the waiting defender. Mitchell is athletic enough to pull it off, and his aggressiveness is a welcome change from his passivity last season.
The aggressiveness, like everything else, comes at a cost, as Mitchell sometimes spends too much time dribbling to get into a low-percentage jump shot or needs a teammate to bail him out, as he did on a second-half possession when he passed Abmas into the baseline corner, where he was double teamed and forced to call a timeout late in the shot clock, affecting Terry’s ability to stop the game late as Texas struggled.
Back on track, Terry put Mitchell on Texas Tech guard Joe Toussaint in the first half after the Bronx native scored 11 of 13 points for the Red Raiders, and Mitchell helped slow him down, demonstrating Mitchell’s ability to guard every position on the court.
The Longhorns’ problem was that other players’ one-on-one defense wasn’t as effective, and Texas allowed Tech to make some tough shots early on, allowing them to play in rhythm for the entire game. Another recipe for Big 12 defeat.
